


Baby Callan to the Tower Came

by misura



Category: Warcraft (2016)
Genre: Drunkenness, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 20:38:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11859240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: "It's a baby," Lothar said. "I couldn't - I mean, it's not like I even want it now, but - "





	Baby Callan to the Tower Came

"A baby," Medivh said.

Lothar nodded solemnly. "It's what happens when two people - "

_Drunk,_ Medivh reminded himself. Whether or not a state of drunkenness might reduce an otherwise sharp-minded man to one simple-minded enough to be subjected to a transformation spell was a topic of some academic interest, but it seemed a pity to waste Moroes's efforts to get him safely up here.

Besides, Lothar only drank to excess when something had upset him.

_Another time, perhaps._

"I am familiar with the process."

"Are you?" Lothar eyed him speculatively.

_What a delightful conversation this is shaping up to be._ Next time Lothar showed up drunk, he'd instruct Moroes to leave him on the lower levels.

"I am," Medivh said. "However, what I fail to see is why you felt the need to bring it - him? here. This is not a nursery. I live here. I do important work here."

"Him," Lothar said. "She named him Callan. My uncle's name."

Medivh considered being polite. He was not unfamiliar with the usual formulae uttered at these sorts of events. "How wonderful for your uncle. He must feel honored."

"Oh, he's dead," said Lothar. "Do you have anything to drink?"

"I have a sobering spell that might make you feel very, very bad," Medivh said. "For a very, very long time."

Lothar considered. "Who'd want you to cast that on them?"

"I don't usually ask people to volunteer," Medivh said.

"Smart."

"Quite. So what brings you here? Why not go to a more suitable place? The royal palace in Stormwind, perhaps. A tavern. A gutter. Something along those lines."

Lothar blinked. Medivh supposed that he ought to be grateful that he hadn't actually been required to start throwing around lightning balls to indicate that he was less than pleased.

"It's a baby," Lothar said. "I couldn't - I mean, it's not like I even want it now, but - "

"You don't want the child?" Medivh shrugged. He vaguely recalled earlier conversations on the topic in which Lothar had seemed delighted at the prospect of a son or daughter, but perhaps he misremembered, or perhaps Lothar had changed his mind upon being confronted with the reality of a small, screaming, and probably smelly human being. "It would seem there is an easy enough solution for that. He has a mother, doesn't he?"

"Ah, no," Lothar said. "She died. So now I'm the one having a baby, see? Just me. And I don't want it."

"I see." _Well. That explains the drinking, at least._ "My sympathies for your loss."

Lothar looked at him. His eyes were blood-shot. "Women have babies all the time, right? So I thought - I didn't think that she'd be needing the Guardian. That's you. You're the Guardian."

"I know little of childbirth," Medivh said. He might have a few books on subject, a few spells he might have cast, had he had sufficient time to prepare them. "Midwifery is hardly my area of expertise."

"You just said you were familiar with the process. I heard you say it."

Medivh sighed. There were several experiments that required his attention, some of them having taken weeks, even months to prepare. Lothar's timing was very poor. _When was it ever not?_

"I know how babies are made," he said, striving for patience. "That is all."

Lothar nodded, either happy enough to concede the point or more likely already having forgotten what the point had been. "D'you think I could give it to the Kirin Tor?"

"They take children, not babies." A good thing, likely, else they might be flooded with offerings. As it was, only those who could afford to spare a pair of hands offered their offspring to be trained in the magical arts, which might not be as it should be, but it was how it was.

"You could have saved her. They said - they said they had to choose, and they chose the baby, because it had a better chance of pulling through. But I know you could have saved both of them. Or just her. I'd have been okay with that, with just her."

Medivh inclined his head. "Again, you have my sympathies."

"Couldn't you - " Lothar gestured vaguely.

"No."

"Liven up the place," Lothar said.

"You are very drunk and very close to exhausting my patience," said Medivh. "I will not adopt your baby. I will not care for it. If it threatens to fall out of a window, I will not lift a finger to save it. If it injures itself by touching one of my books, I will move only to keep the book from getting damaged. Do you understand what I am telling you?"

Lothar sighed and slumped a bit further down. "I only asked a simple question. No need to take it so personal."

"With that out of the way, is there anyone to whom I might send a message to come and collect you?" If he hurried, the evening might not be a complete loss just yet.

Lothar started snoring.

Medivh decided that while it was not in his nature to be cruel, there were circumstances under which it was best to leave a man to the tender and loving care of his tender and loving sister.

With any luck, she might take charge of the baby as well. Supposedly, women had a knack for that sort of thing, although Medivh had never found any rational arguments as to why this might be so.


End file.
